QuickLinks - Protection of minors

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Issue no. 210 - 14 October 2001

• Internet makes children lazy, says academic (ZDNet UK)
  Dr Susan Blackmore, lecturer in psychology at the University of West England in Bristol, claimed that e-learning is making children mentally lazy by encouraging them to rely on the click of a button for information. She told the audience of academics attending the debate at the Royal Institute that the expanse of information available on the Internet is preventing school children from memorising and storing knowledge in their brain.

• UK - BBC introduces further initiatives to protect children online (Press Release)
  With the publication of an updated version of its Online Guidelines, the BBC underlines its commitment to ensure that children are protected in the new media environment. The BBC Online Guidelines provide a benchmark of standards and practices, designed to provide a safe environment for children and young people to surf online with the BBC.

• UK - Parents 'lose control' of children's viewing (BBC)
  The explosion in broadcasting technologies has caused many parents to lose control over what their children watch. The growth of digital, cable and satellite TV, as well as home computer technology, means parents are increasingly powerless to monitor their children's viewing habits. A report, Viewers and Family Viewing Policy, published jointly by the Broadcasting Standards Commission (BSC), the Independent Television Commission (ITC) and the BBC, discovered that many parents were not aware of facilities, such as blocks on pay-TV and internet filters, which help them control what their children watch.

Issue no. 209 - 1 October 2001

• 2morrow's txt 2day (Guardian)
  Kids' TV broadcasters have woken up to the huge popularity of text messaging - or short message services (SMS) - among their young viewers. It seems that the kids love to text. But while racing to jump aboard the SMS bandwagon, youth broadcasters must be careful not to lay themselves open to charges of using text services to exploit children commercially. Or encourage too much use of mobile phones, which some medical experts claim cause cancer because of the radiation they emit.

• Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (Centre for Europe's Children)
  UK Preparation for the Second World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (Yokahama, 17-20 December 2001). The UK government have worked with relevant professional and voluntary organisations to produce a National Plan for Safeguarding Children from Commercial Sexual Exploitation. The Plan focuses on children who are induced or coerced into unlawful sexual activities for the commercial advantage of others and explains what the Government and its partner agencies are doing to protect this most vulnerable group

• Keeping tabs on kids with technology (Wall Street Journal)
  For thousands of parents, it has gone from being a "maybe" to a must-have item for their kids. A cellphone, a beeper, walkie-talkies, almost anything that does the job, has overnight become a necessity for parents worrying about reaching their kids in a crisis.

Issue no. 208 - 24 September 2001

• Music City: We Can't Stop Child Porn (Newsbytes)
  Responding to complaints that the service has become a haven for child pornographers, operators of Music City, a leading alternative to Napster, said they are unable to stop the trading of illegal photos and videos.

Issue no. 207 - 18 September 2001

• UK - Lycos happy to peddle porn to kids (Silicon)
  Pictures of explicit sexual acts are being made readily available to kids by internet portal Lycos - and the company doesn't seem to care. The pictures, which replace the operator logos on mobile phone screens, clearly depict all manner of sexual acts and a number of pornographic poses.

• USA - Study: 300,000 U.S. kids in sex trade (MSNBC)
  Between 300,000 and 400,000 U.S. children are victims of the sex trade each year, from juvenile pornography and street prostitution to selling sex at school, according to a university study that tracked children in 17 major cities.

Issue no. 206 - 3 September 2001

• Wales - E-mail plan for pupils shelved over safety fears (Ananova)
  Plans to give all Welsh schoolchildren their own email addresses have been shelved by ministers because of safety fears.

• Germany - Minister: Das Internet wird nie ganz stubenrein (Heise)
  Friedhelm Repnik (CDU), Sozialminister von Baden-Württemberg, ist sich sicher: Ein Internet ohne Jugendgefährdung ist Illusion. Heute zog der Minister zwar eine positive Bilanz der Bemühungen um den Jugendschutz in den neuen Medien, räumte aber auch ein, dass es trotz aller Bemühungen weiter jugendgefährdende Inhalte geben werde. Repnik lobte in diesem Zusammenhang die Arbeit des jugendschutz.net

• UK - Star of new paedophile film urges objective viewing (Ananova)
  Brian Cox says he hopes people will not pre-judge his new film in which he plays a paedophile. He has defended the recent controversial paedophilia episode of Brass Eye. And he hopes his new movie does not provoke a similar reaction.

• USA - Teens Take Diaries to Public on Web (Washington Post)
  About one out of every five teenagers ages 12 to 17 - more than 4 million of them - now have personal Web pages. But the manner in which some youths bare their lives worries many parents, who are concerned that the teenagers are courting trouble.

• Yahoo still in porn business overseas (CNET News.com)
  Three months after saying it would close its "red light" district, Yahoo is allowing merchants to advertise and sell pornographic material on its Web sites. Although Yahoo has limited risqué advertising and sales of pornographic products on its U.S.-based site, such ads and products are only a click away on some of Yahoo's international sites. Yahoo's German Web site, for instance, features ads containing pictures of nude women and touting "live" sex and "hardcore" photos.

Issue no. 205 - 3 August 2001

• 'How I lured paedophiles online' (BBC)
  Brass Eye has again raised the issue of paedophiles on the net. But how do they really operate online? Rachel O'Connell tells how she posed as a chatroom child.

• We need a law against smutty spam directed at kids (Larry Magid)
  Don't ban online porn and don't even make it a crime to send porno-spam. Just require people who send unsolicited sexual material to label their mail so that parents and others can block it if they so desire.

• UK - Children's charities pressure Blunkett over Net safety campaign (ZDNet UK)
  More than 50,000 NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) campaigners will be bombarding the Home Secretary David Blunkett with postcards this week, pressurising the government into sticking to its election manifesto pledge to make Britain the safest place in the world for children to access the Internet. see campaign web site and Home Office Press Release.

• UK - Ministers attack TV paedophile satire (BBC)
  Three government ministers have joined in criticism of the Channel 4 satirical show, Brass Eye, over its spoof investigation into paedophilia. see also Blunkett joins outcry against Channel 4 show (Reuters) .

• UK - Sex offenders face government crackdown (Reuters)
  Sex offenders will face tighter restrictions under proposals unveiled by the government today. Under the planned changes, sex offenders would have to confirm their address with police each year. So-called "sex tourists" who commit offences abroad would be added to the register and people who commit any sexually motivated crime would be registered. see Strengthening the sex offenders act: public consultation published (Home Office Press Release)

Issue no. 204 - 27 July 2001

• AOL weiß: Internet ist gut für Kinder (Heise)
  Nun endlich auch mal etwas anderes: Internet ist gut für Kinder! Das wenigstens sagt die von AOL in Auftrag gegebene Studie "Kinder und Internet - Nachwuchs für das World Wide Web" des Marktforschungsinstitutes EMNID.

• Cyber-games make children brighter (Sunday Times)
  Computer games are giving a generation of young Britons a level of co-ordination and powers of concentration equivalent to those observed in top-level athletes, a government-funded study has shown. Youngsters who play computer games regularly but not excessively also tend to have more friends and be better adjusted than those who make do with traditional pastimes such as reading and television.

• Girl Model Sites Crossing Line? (Wired)
  A company offers subscriptions to websites featuring "models" as young as 9.

• Kids access porn sites (vnunet)
  Secondary school children across Yorkshire have gained access to pornographic websites after administrator-level passwords fell into the wrong hands.

• Phil Collins considers legal action over TV hoax (Ananova)
  Phil Collins is reportedly considering legal action over a TV hoax on paedophilia. Brass Eye creator Chris Morris duped the singer into appearing in a T-shirt bearing the slogan 'Nonce Sense' while giving 'advice to children'. Another celebrity was duped by Morris to warn children that paedophiles can make toxic vapours rise from their computer keyboards.The spoof campaigns are reportedly intended as a satire on the way the media sensationalises the subject of paedophilia.

• Pornographer Gathers Support (Washington Post)
  Civil libertarians are rallying behind a man who was sentenced to seven years in prison on pornography charges for writing his fantasies of torturing and molesting children in a private journal -- even though he did not disseminate the material

• Violence is all in the game, say makers (vnunet)
  Video games makers of games that depict graphic death and mayhem have told a US judge that they cannot be held responsible for copycat killers. Lawyers for the eight - Acclaim, Activision, Capcom, Eidos, Infogrames, Interplay, Nintendo of America, and Sony Computer Entertainment America - say their content is protected under US free speech rules.

Issue no. 203 - 19 July 2001

• Looking For Clues In Junior's Keystrokes (New York Times)
  The Internet age is ushering in a new mode of parental oversight, one in which Mom and Dad draw Web-based boundaries, issue computer curfews and worry about whether their hack-happy youngsters are making trouble.

• France - La Cnil fait la leçon aux sites web pour enfants (ZDNet FR)
  Dans un récent rapport, la Commission émet un ensemble de recommandations concernant les sites destinés aux jeunes. Elle précise notamment qu'aucune information ne doit être soutirée aux mineurs sans l'accord des parents.

• Germany - Im Internet wuchern die Pornografie-Seiten (dpa)
  Jugendschützer finden im Internet immer mehr Pornografie und so genannte «Tasteless»-Seiten («Geschmacklos»- Seiten), die Fotos von zerstückelten Leichen, Unfallopfer und Ähnliches zeigen.

• Spain - PRODENI denuncia el fácil acceso de los menores a la pornografía en los 'cibercafés' (Europa Press)
  La asociación para los derechos del niño y de la niña, PRODENI, denunció hoy la "facil accesibilidad" de los menores a la pornografía en locales con acceso a Internet. Además, la organización reclama el análisis de la normativa, el control de los 'cibercafés' y exige la denuncia de los centros que "no restrinjan, mediante medios técnicos, la accesibilidad de los menores a ciertas páginas web".

• UK - Inquiry launched after internet porn scare at primary school (Schoolsnet)
  Education chiefs in Wales have launched an inquiry after primary school pupils logged onto a hard-core pornographic site during a computer studies lesson, it has emerged.

Issue no. 202 - 5 July 2001

• Avoiding unwanted solicitations (MSNBC)
  Internet Correspondent Lisa Napoli says parents can teach their children how to protect themselves from unwanted solicitations online while using instant messaging. She advises: don’t talk to strangers; conceal identifying information; and consider using filters.

• Dossier: protection of minors (EBU)
  (PDF - 1.19 MB) Following the conference organised by the Swedish Presidency of the European Union on 12 and 13 February 2001, Diffusion, the magazine of the European Broadcasting publishes a special dossier on protection of minors. This includes a special series of articles on violence on TV, statutory and technical measures, parental control systems and labelling, and children's advertising written by various players in the field. version française.

Issue no. 201 - 26 June 2001

• Protection of minors and human dignity (Press Release)
  Council meeting Culture Luxembourg, 21 June 2001. Council Conclusions on the protection of minors from harmful media content and human dignity as a follow-up to the Commission's Evaluation Report on the implementation of the Council Recommendation of 24 September 1998.

Issue no. 198 - 28 May 2001

• Good Fences: Electronic Leashes for Teenagers (New York Times)
  Parents frantically trying to insulate their adolescent progeny from the all-engulfing darkness are resorting to tracking devices, hidden cameras, Internet monitoring software and even automotive transponders.

• Judge in Japan child-sex case to be impeached (Straits Times)
  A special court will be convened to impeach the High Court judge who paid a 14-year-old for sex, violating a law that bans child prostitution

• Man took indecent pictures of children (Ananova)
  A Railtrack operations manager has been jailed for 14 months at Exeter Crown Court for taking indecent video pictures of children.

• Not In Front Of The Children (NCAC)
  This book by Marjorie Heins explores the fascinating history of "indecency" laws and other restrictions aimed at protecting youth. She suggests that the "harm to minors" argument rests on shaky foundations.

• Shooting The Messenger (Media Coalition)
  Why Censorship Won't Stop Violence, a report by Judith Levine, analyzes and synthesizes dozens of studies and statistics, debunking the myth that there is a link between violence in the media and real-life violence by demonstrating that while research indicates numerous causes for violence, none of them link directly to media violence.

• USA - Circuit City bans sale of adult-rated video games to children under 17 (AP)
  Circuit City plans to stop selling adult-rated video games to customers under 17, joining a growing list of companies that have instituted such policies under pressure from politicians.

Issue no. 197 - 21 May 2001

• Software helps parents track what kids do on computer: Is it "spying" or "parenting?" (Mercury News)
  Keeping track of your kids' activities - whether online or off - isn't the same as peering through your neighbor's window. When done thoughtfully, it's not spying at all. It's parenting.

• Yahoo Goes Beyond Initial Plan Against Adult Sites (New York Times)
  A month after Yahoo, the Internet service, eliminated a section that offered pornographic videos from its shopping area, the company has begun making it harder for users to find sexually explicit chat rooms and clubs. The action has sparked anger and fear among users, prompting thousands of them to sign a petition demanding that the company continue to maintain the popular online forums.

• UK - Watchdog fines firm over phone logos (Ananova)
  Young children are being encouraged to log on to websites where they can buy sexual images as screen logos for their mobile phones. The Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services (ICSTIS) ruled the advertisers had breached rules in the phone service industry's code of conduct.

Issue no. 196 - 15 May 2001

• Child Protection Online (UNESCO)
  A survey of issues.

• USA - COPA Members Urge Congress To Act On Net Porn Report (Newsbytes)
  Concerned that their recommendations for protecting children from "harmful" material on the Internet are going unheeded, members of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) Commission urged congressional staffers to take a closer look at the commission's final report, which was issued to Congress late least year.

Issue no. 195 - 8 May 2001

• FTC: Music Industry 'Irresponsible' (AP)
  Children are being targeted with ads for adult-themed music despite the recording industry's promise last year to revise advertising practices, says a report by the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC singled out the music industry as the worst offender in a study on the marketing of adult movies, music and video games to minors. Record companies were an "almost complete failure'' in making reforms, the FTC said. The FTC has been monitoring the movie, music and video-game industries after finding last year that the three were aggressively promoting to children products that carry adult ratings. see also FTC press release, Recording industry response (RIAA), Report: Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children (.pdf format) (FTC)

• Media Group Opposes Violence-In-Entertainment Bill (Newsbytes)
  A bill that would impose stiff penalties on companies that market violent films, music and video games to children is "constitutionally dubious" and could actually jeopardize voluntary content-rating efforts, a coalition of publishing groups said.

• Neue Studie: Keine Gefahr durch Gewaltspiele (Heise)
  Gewalt in Video-Spielen ist für Kinder und Jugendliche vermutlich weniger gefährlich als bisher angenommen. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt eine Anfang der Woche veröffentlichte Studie des staatlichen Medienausschusses in Norwegen.

• UK - E-campaign calls for child protection (Ananova)
  The NSPCC is calling on the public to write to their MPs and local newspapers calling for child protection to be put at the top of the election agenda.

• USA - Columbine families sue gaming companies (CNET News.com)
  AOL Time Warner, Nintendo of America, and Sony Computer Entertainment are among 25 companies that face a lawsuit filed by the families of the victims of the Columbine massacre. Some of the families of those killed in the Columbine High School shootings are seeking $5 billion in punitive damages against the manufacturers and distributors of video technology. They say the massacre would not have occurred without the marketing of video games, particularly the game "Doom," which they say influenced the two gunmen.

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